Store-service apparatus.



H. W. SCHULZ.

STORE SERVICE APPARATUS.

APPLlcATIoN FILED APH.8.1915.

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{` STA Anvil-ll HERMAN W. SCHULZ, OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, ASSIGNOR T THE LAMSON COMPANY, 0F BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, A CORPORATION OF NEW JERSEY.

Application filed April 8, 1915.

To all ywhom t may concern.' n

Be it known that I, HERMAN W. SCHULZ, a citizen of the United States, residing at Chicago, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Store-Service Apparatus, of which the following is a speciication.

This invention relates to carrier despatch systems and more especially to cable carrier apparatus, and has for one of its objects the provision of means to separate different classes of carriers, such, for example, as may be designated cash and credit carriers, at a determined station.

Another object of the invention as applied to cable carrier systems, has been to use apparatus already in use, as far as practicable, and merely to modify the same in part w iereby to adapt it to accomplish the purpose aforesaid.

These and other objects of my invention will be hereinafter referred to and the novel combinations of means and elements whereby said objects may be attained, will be more particularly pointed out in the claims appended hereto.

In the drawing which forms a part here of and in which like reference characters designate like parts throughout the several views, I have exemplified a preferred form of my invention; but as I am aware of various changes and modifications which may be made herein without departing from the spirit of the invention, I desire to be limited only by the scope of said claims.

Referring to the drawing:

Figure 1 is an elevation of a cable carrier system of the character in question;

certain parts of the track having been broken away for purposes of illustration. Fig. 2 is an enlarged detail elevation of the apparatus located at the central station.

Fig. 3 is a side elevation of the part shown.

in Fig. 2. Fig. l is a top or plan view of one of the selective carriers. Fig. 5 is an end view of the same; and Fig. 6 is a somewhat diagrammatic side elevation of the apparatus shown in Fig. 1.

The carriers 1- 1 are adapted to ride upon a track composed of two rails 2; each carrier comprising suitable rail-engaging parts, such as the fiber plate 3, metal guiding plate a with its lug t, and a spacing Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Oct. 2d, 1915.

Serial No. 20,076.

section 5, preferably of fiber, which co-acts with the lugs 4 and plate 3 to provide the usual lateral grooves or recesses 6 which receive the said rails 9..

rlhe cash receptacle and its cover 7, the latter provided with its latch 8, may be of a type in common use and need not herein be further described.

The bottom plate l is preferably arcuately slotted, as at 9, to accommodate the movable )aw 10 of the grip which engages the cable 11; the other jaw 12, of this grip, being preferably relatively fixed. rlhe construction of this grip is substantially identical with that disclosed in the patent to Geo. A. Amsdcn, No. 960,617, dated June 7, 1910; so that further description of this part need not herein be given, save to state that the movable )aw l0 is adapted to remain in either end of the slot 9 into which it may be moved by the opening or closing cams in the system. A

As usual in systems of this character, carriers may be despatched from any given clerk or sub-station, such as that designated A, to a central station or desk designated B; and correspondingly from this central desk to any given sub-station A or C; all

the carriers pertaining to any given substation, eXcept that most remote fromthe central desk, being provided with the usual selective guide lugs 13, which in a known manner may project from the sides of the cash receptacle.

Carriers about to be despatched from a given station have their guides 4 inserted through the aperture in the track formed by offsetting the rails thereof as at 14C, after which the carrier is moved by the hand of the operator along the track in the direction in which the cable adjacent thereto is traveling, whereby to bring the movable grip jaw 10 into engagement with the closing cam 15, at said station, and close said movable jaw upon the cable. It will be understood, of course, that the end of the carrier most remote from the slot 9 will be the forward end of the carrier in such case.

Let us assume now that the clerk at the station A has effected a cash transaction with a. customer and that the customer has tendered a bill from which change is due. The clerk will thereupon inclose this bill together with the usual memorandum or slip used in large stores, in the cash receptacle of a carrier, designated l, which for present purposes will designated a cash carrier, in contradistinction to what may be termed a credit carrier. In the exemplified construction, the essential difference between thevjcash and creditjcarriers lies in the provision of auxiliary wingsvor lugs 4'13 which may project from the sides of the carrier preferablysomewhat farther than do the lugs l13; the lugs 13 being conveniently fastened directly tothe fiber plate 3, as by means of rivets 16, as shown in Fig. 4 wherein one of` thelugsl 13 has beenibroken away to show these rivets.- The presence or -ab- Y sence of these lugs 13 upon va given carrier,

determines its course at tlie'central desk; since the cash carriers, which-,do not have the ,lugs 13 thereupon, will, after they have 'been 'drawn around the pulley 1'6 which pertains tothe incoming track upon which said carriers ri'de,pass downwardly and will be diverted slightlyl to the left as viewed .in

. Fig. l', by` said incoming track, after they have been freedv Afrom the cable by the gripopening cam 17 and cablefdiverting member 18, ,both of which latter are in common use, `The given cash carrier, after it has passed the yoffset 19 in the Vtrack above referred to, Adescends by gravity over a ymovable track section or switch 20, without disturbing this latter. Y

n The switch 20 may be pivoted at 21 and preferably comprises two sections of track rods united by a connecting bracket 22.l The free 'end'sfof the Vswitch rodsvo'r rails may be beveled 'off as indicated at 23, to permit' of the free pa'ssa'ge'of such a carrier onto the receiving track or shelf 24. Springs 25, are attached tvo-the respective ends of the bracket 22 Vand are in lturn connected to one of the trackbrackets, whereby to normally hold the lswitch in its closed position in which it is shown in full lines in Fig. 3.

' The free ends Cof the rails of the receivingftraclgshown to the right in Fig. 2, may

be drawn together slightly by the action of a spring 27 attached to brackets 2,8 which are connected to these ends, so as to Ybring t v,e carrierfgradually torest by forcing it to spread lapart the, said rails of the track 24,

. l The brackets 28 arepreferably mounted upon a pin 29l carried in -suitable extensions V30 upon thejends lof a supporting frame o'r bracket i The l`cash carriers may be removed, by the operator the central ldesk through "the opening between the free ends of the track Vor shelf 24, in a known manner.

yLet it ybe assumed now, however, that' the ,clerk at :the station,AY is, ldealing with a y credit customer.A In such case it is greatly to be desired that theauthri'z'er stati''iied [at the Vcentraldesk, shall'fbe promptly fadvisedf,concerningfthe transaction l'and as to the name of the customer 1desiring credit.

If cash and credit carriers be allowed to come into a common receiving shelf indiscriminately, as has heretofore been common in apparatus of this description, this usually results in holding back the inspection of the contents of a given credit carrier until the cash carriers in advance thereof have been disposed of bythe operator or operators at the central desk. Very frequently the person purchasing goods upon credit does so to avoid, having to wait for the return of change and the delay in getting a given creditcarrierto the authorizer is apt to resultin annoyance to such a customer, which 'a `thing that the store management, of course, desires to avoid; By the use of the herein described apparatus, such delay is avoided, because of the fact that the credit carriers, for example, 'are thus provided with the lugs 13', which co-act with the parts now to be described, so as to sort out the credit from the cash carriers and deliver the former directly to the authorizer. When a cre'ditv carrier reaches the switch 20, instead of passing downwardly thereover as do the cash carriers, the lugs 13 upon said carrier pass bet'ween switch slats 32 which divert the carrier to the left, as shown in Fig. 3,

and swing the switch 20 into its open position, in which it is shown in dotted lines in said ligure. As soon as the carrier clears the switch, the springs 25 of the latter snap it back into its normal position; while the carrier is delivered by the slats 32 onto a receiving track or shelf, the rails of which have been designated 33. This latter is very much of the same construction as the track 24, `above referred to, except that it preferably 'bends jin an opposite direction, or to the leftas shown in Fig. 2. It may also be provided with the'bra'ckcts 28, spring 27 and like parts, all of which may b'e'supported or carried by "a frame or bracket 3l.

By Vforming the brackets 31--31 in the manner shown, but little room is taken up upon the 'counter surface of the central desk, and in fact these brackets may be integrally united at their bases, as indicated in Fig. Q. v "lilius, thereis provided a system in which 'carriers may be vdespatched from a central "ole'sktov any given substation, there to be 'selectivelyremoved from the outgoing track 'by switch slats 84, in 4a VLknown manner, such a lcarrierbein'g thereafter received in a tra cklo'opfor shelf 35, from whence it may bc re- I'noved by :the clerk 'at this sub-Station; while :said clerk in turn, may despatch both cash andcr'edit carriers overa common track to 'the central l'deskat or adjacent to which said carriers will be automatically disconnected v'from the cable and separated according to lclasses; rthe cash carriers being delivered to the cashier while the credit carriers are dclivered directly to the authorizer.

Thecable employed is preferably a single,

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endless and continuously driven one, although I do not desire to be limited to any specific type of cable, and passes up through the successive sub-stations A, C, etc., until it passes over the pulley 16, whence it travels downwardly through station B to the pulley 16. It then passes up substantially parallel to the outgoing or despatching track at the central desk and around the pulley 16', back of the pulley 16 as viewed in Fie. 1, to thereafter pass through the sub-stations, this time in reverse order, and completing the circuit. The said patent to George A. Amsden describes themode of arranging the selective lugs 13 of the carriers pertaining to the respective sub-stations so that they may co-act with the switches 34 of these stations to selectively deliver said carriers to their proper stations, and I, of course, lay no claim to such parts, per se: but l do regard the combination of the several elements above described as novel, since to the best of my knowledge, in a system of this character, no attempt has heretofore been made to not only provide for such selective distribution oi' carriers outgoing from the central desk but to further sort out these carriers by classes upon their return to said central desk from the series of sub-stations.

Having thus described my invention what l claim is:

1. A cable carrier system comprising a track or way, a cable to propel carriers along said track or way, carriers of two classes adapted to travel along said track, a central station at which said carriers. are delivered, two receiving shelves at said station, means to separate and direct said carriers to said shelves according to the classes of said carriers, a plurality of sub-stations from which said carriers may be despatched to said central station, and means for selectively delivering said carriers from said first mentioned station to any of said sub-stations.

2. A cable carrier system comprising a track or way, carriers of different classes to travel along said track or way, a cable to propel said carriers, a plurality of stations along said track or way, selective means to deliver carriers, traveling along said track or way in one direction, to the respective station successively located along the path of carriers despatched from a determined one of said plurality of stations, regardless of the classes of said carriers, and separating means to sort-apart according to said classes the carriers traveling from any one of the said respective stations to said determined one of said stations.

3. A carrier despatch system comprising a way, carriers of different classes to travel along said way, said carriers having projections upon certain of the same to establish said classes, a plurality of stations along said way, said carriers having also additional projections upon certain oi' the same corresponding to certain of said stations, said additional projections being graduated in correspondence with the relative positions of said certain stations with respect to others of the same along said way, pairs of switching devices at said certain stations to co-act with said graduated additional projections to selectively deliver said carriers to their corresponding stations when en roel/te along said way in one direction, the devices in each pair oit' the same being spaced apart a determined distance and the carriers passing therebetween, and another pair of switching devices to co-a-ct with said classestablishing projections to separate carriers according to said classes, at one of said plurality of stations, said last mentioned pair of switching devices being spaced apart a distance greater than that aforesaid.

4. A carrier despatch system comprising a way, carriers of different classes to travel along said way, said carriers having projections upon certain of the same to establish said classes, a plurality of stations along said way, said carriers having also additional projections upon certain of the same corresponding to certain of said stations, said additional projections being graduated in correspondence with the relative positions of said certain stations with respect to others of the same along said way, means at said certain stations to co-act with said graduated additional projections to selectively deliver said carriers to their corresponding stations when en route along said way in one direction, and means to co-act with said class-establishing projections to separate carriers according to said classes at one of said plurality of stations, said classestablishing projections being spaced at all times clear of said means at said stations which co-act withV said additional projections, and said additional projections being correspondingly spaced clear of said class separating means.

5. A carrier despatch system comprising a way, carriers of different classes to travel along said way, said carriers having lugs upon certain of the same to establish said classes, a plurality of stations along said way, said carriers having also additional lugs upon certain of the same corresponding to certain of said stations, said additional lugs being graduated in correspondence with the relative positions of said certain stations with respect to others of the same along said way, pairs oi' guides at said certain stations, between which the carriers pass spaced determined distances from the respective guides in each pair of the same, said guides co-acting with said graduated additional lugs to selectively deliver said carriers to their corresponding stations when en route along said Wayin one direction, and switching means, spaced from the carriers distances greater than those aforesaid, to co-act with said,class-establishing provisionsy to separate carriers according to said classes, atone of said plurality ofstations, said last ymentioned lugs projecting outwardly from said carriers beyond said additional lugs on the latter.

G. A cable carrier system comprising a track, a cable to propel carriersalong said track, carriers of two classes adapted to travel along said track,V means upon certain of said carriers to establish said classes, a central station to which said carriers are delivered, two shelves or repositories at said central station for holding. said carriers, when separated, according to elasses,`means at said station to co-act with said first mentioned means to separate said carriers aceordingto said classes, a plurality of substations from which said carriers of either class may be despatched, lugsuptosn said carriersvdistinct from said first mentioned means, and means at said sub-stations to coact with said lugs toselectively distribute said carriers to said sub-stations, regardless of said classes, when said carriers are despatched rom said central station.

7, AV cable carrier system comprising a track, a cable to propel carriers along` said track, carriersV of two classes adapted to travel along said track,y means upon certain of said carriers to establish said classes, a central station ,to which said carriers are der livered,.tvvo shelves or repositoriesat said central station for holdingjsaid carriers, when separated, aecordingto elasses,`means at said station to co-act with said first mentioned means to separate said carriers ac cording to said classes, a plurality of substations from which said carriers of either class maybe despatched, lugs upon said earriers, and means at said-sub-stations to coactl withsaidlugs to selectively distribute said carriers to saidsubfstations, regardless of said classes, when said carriers are despatched from said, centralstation, said lugs -and said means to co-act therewith being graduated in correspondence with each other and said first mentioned meanstraveling when the'- given carrier to which they pertain is in motion, in fa different plane from that in which travel any of said lugs upon said carrier. 4

8. A cable carrier system comprising a track, Va cablei to propel ycarriers along said track, carriers of two classes adapted to travel along said track, means upon certain of said carriers to establish said classes, a centralstation to which said carriers are delivered, two shelves or repositories at said central station for holding said carriers, when separated, according to classes, means at said station to co-act with said irst mentioned means toA separate said carriers according to saidfclasses, al plurality oiE substations from which said carriers of either classmay be despatched, lugs upon said carriers distinct from said first mentioned means, and means at said sub-stations to eoact with saidlugs to selectively distribute said carriersto said sub-stations, regardless of said classes, when said carriers are despatched from said central station, said lugs and said meansto co-aetv therewith being graduated in correspondence with each other and said first mentioned means travelingwhenthe given carrier to which they pertainis in motion, in a different plane from thatiin which travel any of said lugs upon said carrier, said different plane being closer to the plane of the track.

ln testimony whereof I have aixed my signature, in the presence of two witnesses.

HERMAN XV. SCHULZ,

Witnesses CARL ZIEGLER, JULIUs ZKINKE.

Copies of this patent may be optalinedzfor fivey cents each, bypaddressing the Commissioner of Patenti.

Washington, I), C. i 

